II
The Second Attempt, Opposed by Two of the Natives
"There were but two, and we were forty! Yet,"
The Captain wrote, "that dauntless couple throve,
And faced our wildering faces; and I said
'Lie to awhile!' I did not choose to let
A strife go on of little worth to us.
And so unequal! But the dying tread
Of flying kinsmen moved them not: for wet
With surf and wild with streaks of white and black
The pair remained."—O stout Caractacus!
'Twas thus you stood when Caesar's legions strove
To beat their few, fantastic foemen back—
Your patriots with their savage stripes of red!
To drench the stormy cliff and moaning cove
With faithful blood, as pure as any ever shed.
III
The Spot Where Cook Landed
Chaotic crags are huddled east and west—
Dark, heavy crags, against a straitened sea
That cometh, like a troubled soul in quest
Of voiceless rest where never dwelleth rest,
With noise "like thunder everlasting."
But here, behold a silent space of sand!—
Oh, pilgrim, halt!—it even seems to be
Asleep in other years. How still! How grand!
How awful in its wild solemnity!
This is the spot on which the Chief did land,
And there, perchance, he stood what time a band
Of yelling strangers scoured the savage lea.
Dear friend, with thoughtful eyes look slowly round—
By all the sacred Past 'tis sacred ground.
IV
Sutherland's Grave
'Tis holy ground! The silent silver lights
And darks undreamed of, falling year by year
Upon his sleep, in soft Australian nights,
Are joys enough for him who lieth here
So sanctified with Rest. We need not rear
The storied monument o'er such a spot!
That soul, the first for whom the Christian tear
Was shed on Austral soil, hath heritage
Most ample! Let the ages wane with age,
The grass which clothes this grave shall wither not.
See yonder quiet lily! Have the blights
Of many winters left it on a faded tomb?*
Oh, peace! Its fellows, glad with green delights,
Shall gather round it deep eternal bloom!
* A wild lily grows on the spot supposed to be Sutherland's grave.—H.K.
To Henry Halloran
You know I left my forest home full loth,
And those weird ways I knew so well and long,
Dishevelled with their sloping sidelong growth
Of twisted thorn and kurrajong.
It seems to me, my friend (and this wild thought
Of all wild thoughts, doth chiefly make me bleed),
That in those hills and valleys wonder-fraught,
I loved and lost a noble creed.
A splendid creed! But let me even turn
And hide myself from what I've seen, and try
To fathom certain truths you know, and learn
The Beauty shining in your sky:
Remembering you in ardent autumn nights,
And Stenhouse near you, like a fine stray guest
Of other days, with all his lore of lights
So manifold and manifest!
Then hold me firm. I cannot choose but long
For that which lies and burns beyond my reach,
Suggested in your steadfast, subtle song
And his most marvellous speech!
For now my soul goes drifting back again,
Ay, drifting, drifting, like the silent snow
While scattered sheddings, in a fall of rain,
Revive the dear lost Long Ago!
The time I, loitering by untrodden fens,
Intent upon low-hanging lustrous skies,
Heard mellowed psalms from sounding southern glens—
Euroma, dear to dreaming eyes!
And caught seductive tokens of a voice
Half maddened with the dim, delirious themes
Of perfect Love, and the immortal choice
Of starry faces—Astral dreams!
That last was yours! And if you sometimes find
An alien darkness on the front of things,
Sing none the less for Life, nor fall behind,
Like me, with trailing, tired wings!
Yea, though the heavy Earth wears sackcloth now
Because she hath the great prophetic grief
Which makes me set my face one way, and bow
And falter for a far belief,
Be faithful yet for all, my brave bright peer,
In that rare light you hold so true and good;
And find me something clearer than the clear
White spaces of Infinitude.